Not only is there this spiritual interpretation of the law, which makes
it the more impossible to keep it, but there is the new commandment the
Lord gave his disciples, to love one another _as he loved them_. And
as though this were not enough, the New Testament epistles, after the
death and resurrection, when the dispensation of law was fully over,
show us that to break the law of God at one point makes us guilty of
all: “Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have
respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as
transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble
in one point, he is become guilty of all. For he that said, Do not
commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit
adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law”
(James 2:8-11).
This startling passage says that if Christians have respect of
persons――and has not the Spirit here put his finger upon one of
the most pathetic and abominable sins of Christian churches of our
day?――these Christians are convicted as transgressors of the law, and
are guilty of all. Then the Apostle goes on to speak of the sins of
murder and adultery as samples of the kind of thing that a Christian is
guilty of when he shows respect of persons,――the awful sin of unlove.
Law Never Abrogated
This leads us into the truth that the law of God is pure and holy and
spiritual, and has never been abrogated. The New Covenant does not take
away the law: it provides a way of fulfilling the law. There are many
senses in which the word “law” is used in the Scriptures, but we are
looking now at the righteous law of God which must be fulfilled, and
the breaking of which is sin, for sin is lawlessness, or the breaking
of the law. James tells us that to stumble in one point is to break the
whole law, for the law is a unity.
The law is a unity because it is an expression of the character of God,
and God is one.
To break it in one point is to sin against God. It is a true revelation
of the Scriptures that “God is law,” though these words do not occur.
The words “God is love” do occur, and love is the fulfilling of the law.
When God gave the perfect law to men God knew that men could not keep
it apart from the secret of Grace. _But men did not know it._ And God
cannot do anything for a man by grace until man learns that he is a
transgressor of the law of God, and that it is _impossible for him to
keep it_. Israel said, “All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do.” They
indeed needed a tutor unto Christ.
The law, then, was added to show man what sin is, to make sin exceeding
sinful, to prove to man that he is a sinner. This work the law did all
through the old dispensation. But this work the law must continue to do
for every individual before he can enter into the meaning of grace.
That Seventh of Romans Struggle
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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